Part 7

“I allaow he ez,” said Gammer; “’n’ I allaow ter yeow thet, much ’s I’m agen bills, ’n’ billed folks marryin’ agen, I’d like ter see Zeph Riker git him another wife, pesky quick tew, jest ter spite them tew devils thet ’s kep’ him in er hell, ’s yer might say, these tew years, goin’ on three. Mebbe ’tain’t right, ’n’ mebbe ’tis. I allaow I’d take the resk on ’t ef ’twuz me.”

And now a startling thing occurred. Miss Sophy, who had been standing, immovable, rigid, in front of Gammer, listening to this narrative, turning first red, then pale, and fast losing her self-control, suddenly lost it altogether, and flinging herself into a chair, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears, sobbing out, half apologetically, “I never heard such a story in my life! Such things never happened where I was brought up.”

Gammer was astounded. Miss Sophy’s bearing, her attitude throughout all her active interest in Zeph’s affairs, had always been unmistakably that of the cool, common-sense, kindly benefactor. Her sudden change to the level of a weeping friend baffled Gammer’s utmost powers of understanding. Bewilderment made her dumb. Finally she stammered: “I allaow yer tired, mebbe. I git plum beat aout sometimes, ’n’ ther leastest thing’ll set me off cryin’.” At which Miss Sophy cried harder than ever, and Gammer’s bewilderment deepened.

At last Miss Sophy, recovering herself, said: “That’s so. This long spell o’ cold weather’s got my nerves all strung up, somehow, so I can’t bear anything; an’ I’m sure it’s enough to make anybody cry, to think what that man’s gone through with. I’ve got to know him real well, you see, havin’ him here this winter to work on the addition,” she added.

“Yes,” said Gammer, glad to change to a less exciting topic. “He wuz er tellin’ us abaout it. He allowed he hed reel pleasure buildin’ it fur ye. He sets a heap by yer; donno’s yer know it, but he doos. He sez thar warn’t never sech er woman ’n the world ez yeow be.”

Miss Sophy’s cheeks were red again, and her eyes, brighter than before, fastened on Gammer’s face as she spoke these words,—fastened there with an expression which the honest old woman was far from understanding.

Miss Sophy had had a revelation. No more disguise, equivocation, illusion, ignorance, on her part, in regard to her feeling toward Zeph. She loved him, and she knew it.

What would come of it? Nothing; she said to herself sternly,—nothing could come of it. The man’s heart was not his own, was no longer to be won by any woman; it had been given once for all, and he was not a man to love twice, said Miss Sophy in her simplicity,—given once for all to that wretched, wicked woman, the mother of his children, who had now separated herself from him forever. It was bitter. But there were consolations. Very well Miss Sophy knew that his life would not be severed from hers unless she herself chose; that they would work together, her interests the same to him as his own, her wishes and needs determining his daily duties, and, what was still more, the sight of her, and talking with her, the greatest comfort and happiness left to his saddened life. This was a great deal. With this, Miss Sophy thought she could be contented. “And if I can’t, I can go away,” she said to herself. All this and much more had passed through her mind while she was saying her final words of parting with Gammer, who had, as she phrased it, “dropped everything ’n’ run to tell the noos on’t,” and was in haste to get home.

After Gammer had gone, Miss Sophy turned her back on her work, and locked herself into her room for a resolute thinking. She did not mince matters with herself any more than she would have done with another.

“Here you are, Sophy Burr,” she said, as she would have said it aloud to a culprit standing bodily before her. “Here you are! Now what?” At the end of the hour she was no nearer knowing. Her second soliloquy had closed, like her first, with the words, “If I can’t, I can go away.”

The March snows, and the April snows, and the May snows, came and went. June followed like a midsummer close on their icy days, and Greenhills was green again. Young vegetables were peering up in the garden; the cows were revelling in fresh grass; and Zeph, back at his post on the ranch, was proud of the cream and butter he had for Miss Sophy twice a week. On the face of things were prosperity and peace in both Miss Sophy’s houses. Zeph’s countenance wore a new look of contentment and calm. He had put behind him the things that were dead, and was pressing forward to the things that remained alive, in way of duty and work.

A change had come about in his relations with Miss Sophy, which had given him a new self-respect, and a sense of manly independence, which were an ever-present stimulus and pleasure. He did not clearly know how this had happened. Miss Sophy knew. It had begun by her calling him “Mr. Riker” one day.

Startled and uneasy, he looked at her,—looked the question he did not speak. Miss Sophy laughed. Relieved, he exclaimed, “Ye scared me, Miss Burr. I was afraid I’d ’fended ye.”

“Oh, no!” said the clever Miss Sophy. “Far from it. But I don’t feel it’s respectful for me to go on calling a man by his first name, when he manages all my affairs for me. I look to you for ’most everything now, and I ain’t goin’ to call you Zeph any longer.”

“’Most everybody does,” said Zeph.

“That’s because they don’t know you so well as I do,” said Miss Sophy.

All the way out to Greenhills Zeph kept thinking this over. It puzzled him. He was pleased, and yet not pleased. It seemed to put him farther from Miss Sophy, and yet nearer. He gave up trying to understand the mystery of it. On the whole, however, he wished that she would say “Zeph.” But she did not,—not for many a day.

The next thing Miss Sophy did was simply an act of justice. She said to him one day, “Mr. Riker, at the rate you are going on, you will double the value of my ranch for me. I can see that. You are working as if you were working for yourself.”

“Of course,” said Zeph, simply.

“Well,” continued Miss Sophy, “that’s a thing money doesn’t pay for. Wages don’t cut any figure at all when a man takes hold of a place that way; you ought to have a share in the place. Now, what I’ve been thinking would be a fairer way, would be for me to reckon your year’s wages in a lump as so much put into the ranch on your account, so we shall be owning it together; do you understand? And if you want to go into stock a little more, why I’ll go shares in that too.”

Zeph stared. The good luck of the thing amazed him. Yet he saw that there was a certain fairness in it. Miss Sophy was not making him a gift, only helping him to a good investment of his earnings.

He did not make any profuse expressions of gratitude. It was not his way. But his “Thank you, Miss Burr, I couldn’t ask for anythin’ better ’n that if I’d had my choice given t’ me,” was all that Miss Sophy needed. And the new life and spirit in him which dated from that day were also new life and spirit to her affectionate soul.

Good as it was for Zeph to be called Mr. Riker, he did not like it. At last it seemed to him he could not bear it. Vainly he wondered at the intensity of his feeling in regard to it. “What odds does ’t make what she calls me? I swear it’s queer how I hate to hear her say Mr. Riker t’ me,” he said.

Finally he mustered courage to say this. It was at Miss Sophy’s back gate; he had come in as usual with the Greenhills butter and cream, and a fine lot of green peas, the first of the season,—and Greenhills peas were always two weeks ahead of anybody’s else in the region. Miss Sophy was delighted, and as she bade him good-by, she said, “I’m proud enough, to have peas so early. I can’t see how you did it. I’m ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Riker.”

“My name’s Zeph,” said Zeph, in a sudden impulse of desperate courage.

“So’s mine Sophy,” retorted Miss Sophy, in an equally sudden impulse of desperate courage, looking full into his eyes.

“Why! Miss Burr!” gasped Zeph, dropping the reins in his agitation. But Miss Sophy had turned and run up the path as fast as her feet could carry her, laughing, however, and looking back at Zeph, who sat gazing after her in consternation.

“Good Lord!” he said to himself as she disappeared in the doorway. “What did she mean? She wan’t mad, anyhow. She couldn’t ha’ meant I was to call her Sophy! O’ course it couldn’t ha’ been that!”

“What did she mean?” was a constant refrain in Zeph’s thoughts for the next three days; and, “I wonder what he’ll do when he comes in Thursday?” was the refrain in Miss Sophy’s. And when Thursday morning came, and the Greenhills wagon was seen turning into the lane at the back of Miss Sophy’s house, her heart thumped like a hammer in her bosom.

“If he don’t call me Sophy now, he never will,” she thought.

Zeph was also in trepidation. “I dassent open my mouth,” he thought, “till she’s said something first. Perhaps she’s forgotten all about it.”

She met him on the porch. The instant he looked in her face, he knew she had not forgotten. The instant Miss Sophy looked in his, she divined his thought; divined also that it would be hers, and not his, to speak the first word.

“Good morning,” she said; and after a second’s pause, “Is it to be Mr. Riker, then, or Zeph?”

“Zeph,” he said, in a voice so low it seemed less than a whisper. “I can’t bear it, somehow, to have ye call me anythin’ else.”

“Well, then, Zeph it is,” replied Miss Sophy, as lightly and glibly as if she had nothing more at stake than a jest of an idle moment; “but you know what I told you. If Zeph’s your name, Sophy’s mine. Give and take’s fair play.”

Zeph’s hands were full—his hands and arms also—of parcels from Greenhills: the butter, the jug of cream, young radishes, lettuce, peas. He did not speak, but went on slowly laying them down one by one, trying to think what he should say.

“Well?” said Miss Sophy. “Bargain?”

Her light tone deceived him. “I can’t think ye’d make fun o’ me, Miss Burr,” he said. “I don’t make out your meanin’.”

“I couldn’t ever make fun of you, Mr. Riker,” retorted Miss Sophy, in a tone still merry, but with an under note in it which Zeph had not been man if he had failed to perceive.

“You’re the best friend I ever had, or ever shall have, in this world,” cried Zeph.

“And you’re the best friend I have, or ever expect to have, in this world,” answered Miss Sophy; “the very best—Zeph!”

Their eyes met,—Miss Sophy’s shining with resolution and tears, Zeph’s, dark with unfathomable emotion and bewilderment. He opened his lips to speak; then slowly shaking his head, turned to go.

“Good-by, Zeph!” said Miss Sophy, smiling. She had conquered, she was sure. It would not be on that day, or the next, perhaps, that Zeph could speak her name, but it would come.

“If you can’t say Sophy, you needn’t say anything,” she continued. “I don’t like Miss Burr any better than you do Mr. Riker!”

Zeph’s eyes lighted up. His tongue was loosed now. “Don’t ye?” he exclaimed. “If I thought that, I could learn any name ye wanted me to!”

“Sophy’ll do,” said Miss Sophy, dryly. “It’s as good as Zeph. They ain’t either of ’em any great beauties o’ names to boast of!” And now they both laughed merrily, and parted without another word, only a farewell smile to each other,—a smile out of which all the sparkle of the mirthful laughter had gone, leaving behind the soft light of a deep affection. And the next time the Greenhills wagon came in (it was but three days from Thursday to Monday), Miss Sophy met it at the gate, and said with sweet gravity, “Good-morning, Zeph;” and Zeph made answer, “Good-morning, Sophy.” And it would have been hard to say which of them was the happier in the new sound the syllables bore and the new bond their speaking made.

The happiness of it lasted Miss Sophy for many days; but as the summer wore away she began to look for something more,—she hardly dared phrase to herself for what, yet in her heart she knew; and knew, too, that the thing she craved was hers by right; that the lonely, sorrowful, deserted man for whom she had come to care so tenderly had come also to love her with a true devotion. But gradually there grew up in her a fear that he would never say so. Not by word or look did he show that any idea of any relation beyond or different from their present one was in his mind. Whether it were that he lacked courage, or that he still held himself bound by the bond which his wife had broken, Miss Sophy could not determine. On the latter point she herself had had doubts, but by some surreptitious reading on the subject of divorce, and by several cautiously conducted consultations with her minister and with other persons, she had at length become fully satisfied that there could be no possible shadow of wrong in the second marriage of a man whose wife had not only betrayed and deserted him, but become legally the wife of another.

“It hasn’t got any business to stand in his way one minute,” she said to herself again and again; “and perhaps ’tain’t that that is standing in his way. But what else can it be? ’Tain’t any love for her; I’m sure o’ that. That’s one comfort!”

And by the help of this last item of comfort Miss Sophy weathered the summer fairly well. But when the autumn signals were flung out,—great yellow patches of aspens high up on the mountain-sides, and tossing plumes of purple asters around the Greenhills spring,—Miss Sophy lost heart.

“Winter’ll be here in a jiffy,” she said, “an’ he won’t let me keep the ranch open, an’ I can’t stand it; I can’t stand not to see him ’s I’ve been seein’ him!” And Miss Sophy racked her brain vainly for a device.

Finally one occurred to her,—so desperate, so final, it almost took her breath away as it first flashed through her thoughts; but the longer she thought, the more she believed it good. It was desperate, and it would be final: if she won, she won; if she lost, she lost—all. This is a common trick of Love’s winning. He makes gamesters, desperate gamesters, of most of us at least once in our lives. We throw down our last card and bravely call out color or number, all the while feeling a death-grip at our throats.

“I might as well!” said Miss Sophy. “There’s no use going on this way forever. It’s nonsense; besides that, it’ll kill me. I can’t stand it. I’d rather go away.”

And she made up her mind. But after she had made it up, she hesitated day after day. She trembled. More than once she opened her lips to speak the words, and terror held her dumb. If she lost, she lost all.

At last she spoke. It was at Greenhills. Already the foreshadowing of winter glooms had touched the place; frost had turned the vines black and shrivelled every leaf in the garden. Yet it was only the middle of September. It looked desolate.

“Looks as I feel,” said Miss Sophy, grim and resolute; “but I’ll feel worse, mebbe, before I’m done with it.”

“Zeph,” she said. Zeph was standing by her side at the bars of the corral where all the yearlings had been put. He had been pointing them out to her with great satisfaction.

There was something in Miss Sophy’s tone which fell strangely on Zeph’s ear. He knew the inflections of her voice better than she dreamed. What was coming? She had never pronounced his name thus before. Never, indeed! He turned his face quickly towards her, inquiringly.

“Zeph!” she said again, and again the words refused to come. She took firm hold of the upper rail of the fence to support herself, and began once more: “Zeph, I’ve made up my mind to go to California. I’m goin’ to sell out an’ go this fall. I about made up my mind last winter I’d never stand another o’ these Colorado winters; but it’s been so pleasant this summer, it kind of put me out o’ the notion; but now I see it settin’ in again I feel just ’s I did, ’n’ I’m goin’! I’m gettin’ too old to stand any more snow. Do you know anybody that ud like to buy this ranch? There’s a man ready to take the other house right off my hands just as ’tis, furniture ’n’ all.”

Astonishment, incredulity, pain, bewilderment, each in turn and all together, had swept over Zeph’s face while Miss Sophy was speaking these words. His eyes fastened themselves on hers blankly. As soon as she ceased speaking, he stammered: “Sophy! you! going to California! goin’ away! You can’t mean it, Sophy! What are ye goin’ for? You’re doin’ splendid here!” The words came slower and slower; the man was half stunned; and before the hesitating sentences were concluded, he, too, had instinctively grasped the bars for support. “Ye can’t mean it, Sophy! I ’most think ye’re crazy.”

“I guess not,” said Miss Sophy, more at ease already. If he felt it like this, he would never let her go alone, surely. Her winning must be close at hand. She did not yet thoroughly know the nature of the man she was dealing with.

“I guess not,” she repeated. “I hain’t ever had the name o’ bein’ light-headed. I’ve been a long time makin’ up my mind to this.”

“I wish ye’d ha’ let me know on ’t sooner,” said Zeph, in an aggrieved tone, which was music to Miss Sophy’s ears.

“Why?” she said.

“I could ha’ got used t’ ’t by degrees,” he replied sadly. “It’s struck me all of a heap. But I’ll do all I can to help ye, Sophy,” he continued, bracing himself up, and looking away from her for a minute. “I could ha’ got a buyer for the ranch better in the summer than now. It’s a bad time to sell. I expect it would be better to let it lay ’s ’tis till spring. I can look after it for ye till then, same ’s I have done.” And Zeph sighed.

Alas! Had she lost? What was Miss Sophy to say next? The talk had taken a hopeless turn. To gain time, she replied meaninglessly: “I don’t know! I suppose ’tis a bad time! I never thought o’ that. But I want to go before the cold weather sets in. There’s flowers all winter long in the south part o’ California, they say; an’ that’s where I’m goin’.”

“Ye’ve always seemed real happy here, Sophy,” cried Zeph, “’n’ real well too! ’T never so much’s crossed my mind ye’d ever leave; ye ain’t got nothin’ ailin’ ye, have ye, to make ye need to go?” And his face clouded over with the new anxiety which had that instant occurred to him.

What tantalizing cruelty sometimes in these impenetrable veils between human hearts, which are at other times such merciful protection! If Miss Sophy could have known that as Zeph asked this question his racked heart was saying, “If she’s got any disease hold on her I’ll coax her t’ let me go ’long too, ’n’ take care of her,” she would have then and there feigned herself the victim of any known malady. But in her pride of energetic health she made haste to repudiate any such implication.

“Mercy, no!” she said. “Do I look like a sick woman? Never felt better. But I’m tired o’ this place, an’ this life, an’ everything about it, an’ especially o’ these winters. I’d like to go where I’d never see another flake o’ snow ’s long ’s I live. I was brought up on snow; ’n’ I’ve had six months o’ snow—that is o’ bein’ liable to snow—out o’ every year I’ve been here; ’n’ I’m sick on ’t, ’n’ I’m goin’. I’ve got enough to get me a place that I can make a livin’ off anywhere; ’n’ I don’t know any reason why I should slave myself here, ’n’ freeze to death every winter.”

Luckless Miss Sophy. Each one of these last sentences went like a bullet to Zeph’s heart. “Tired o’ this place,” was she? The place which had seemed to him almost blissful of late; and the work which they had been jointly doing, he and she, the fruitful ranch, the increasing herd, the prosperous boarding-house,—all this was to her “slaving to death,” and she was going. She had made up her mind to it without a word to him any more than if he had been the poorest cattle-herder, on the ranch,—to him, to whom she had said, only a few short months ago, that he was the best friend she had on the earth! Very well! woman like woman! They were all the same, heartless and untrue,—one from vanity and passion, another from caprice! They were all alike! This was the last woman whom he would ever trust! The storm of all these bitter thoughts turned Zeph’s face stern and his voice cold, and when he replied curtly, “Well, ye’d better go, then, if that’s the way ye feel, Sophy,” poor Miss Sophy had to clutch tight to her rail to keep from staggering.

The hurt that he gave her, however, was their salvation. Without it they might have perhaps parted forever, then and there, neither knowing that the other was wounded. But this hurt was too sudden and too deep to be borne without a cry; and Miss Sophy’s voice, even without the tears in her eyes, would have appealed to any man like a cry, as she exclaimed, “Oh, Zeph! I don’t see why you take it that way! I think you’re real cruel!”

“I don’t never mean to be that,” said Zeph, “not to nobody. But you don’t seem to think it’s anythin’ for a fellow to be turned off all in a minute, an’ everythin’ all broke up!”

Miss Sophy took heart again. “Who said anything about turning off?” she asked, with a faint smiling in her tearful eyes.

“Well, you didn’t say anythin’ about anythin’ else!” retorted Zeph, still sullen. “You hadn’t any idee o’ takin’ me with ye?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ all the time, Zeph,” said Miss Sophy, “that I didn’t know how I’d ever get along without you!”

“Why didn’t ye say so, then?”

“How could I?”

“How could ye? What’s to hender? Ye got me to do your business for ye here, ’n’ let on to think so much o’ my managin’; ’n’ why couldn’t ye’ve said ye’d like to have me keep on with it there? No, ye’re tired o’ the place ’n’ everybody in it! That’s what’s the matter with you!”

Was this Zeph? What was to become of Miss Sophy in this chaos of confusion which she had drawn down on her head? Stretching out both her hands, she cried: “Zeph, I don’t know what’s got into you ’n’ me to be quarrellin’ here, nor what we’re quarrellin’ about, neither. I should think you’d know that the last thing I’d want to do, would be to part from you, an’ that I’d rather have you manage for me than anybody!”

The pleading in her voice was unmistakable; her face glowed with affection. Still Zeph seemed both deaf and blind.

“Then why didn’t ye ask me to go ’long too?” he reiterated. “Why didn’t ye take me into any o’ your plans? Will you take me now?” he added, with a half-surly and incredulous emphasis.

Miss Sophy hid her face in both her hands; she was rosy red; she saw a vista opening.

“How could I, Zeph?” she whispered. “Folks don’t know us out there. It’s very different here, where everybody knows us. I don’t want to go without you, Zeph, you needn’t think!”

Into the chambers of Zeph’s brain light had broken at last. What a dolt he had been!

“Oh, Sophy, Sophy!” he cried, “was ye a tryin’ me? I do believe ye was!” and he threw his arms around her. “Sophy, it ’most killed me to hear ye talk so cool o’ goin’ away ’n’ leavin’ me, when I hain’t had a thought, day nor night, except o’ servin’ you ’n’ belongin’ to you, for so long!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so, then?” retorted Miss Sophy, half laughing, half crying, making haste to turn the tables on him and avenge herself. “Why didn’t you say so, and not drive me into just about offerin’ myself to you?”

“Sophy! Sophy!” answered Zeph, “don’t you go to talkin’ any such way’s that. I don’t know about offerin’, ’s you call it; givin’ ’s more ’n offerin’, an’ you know well enough I giv’ myself to you a long ways back, an’ hain’t ever had, from that day to this, any idee o’ doin’ anythin’ but helpin’ ye an’ lovin’ ye ’s long’s I live on this earth!”

And Miss Sophy was content.

VI.